Mr. Tony O'Brien:

In reply to Deputy Ó Caoláin's last question, the answer is "yes". I can give the Deputy a categoric assurance on that. When Senator van Turnhout asked earlier how we can provide assurance that these posts will be put in place, I should have stated that the assurance comes in the form that we are not waiting to see the relevant number of exits but instead are proceeding in advance of that and are taking a calculated risk that we will fall short of our overall employment control framework, ECF, reduction in order to achieve this. Obviously, we are concluding the recruitment of the outstanding posts from the list for 2012 before commencing the recruitment for 2013 in order to avoid any confusion that might pertain otherwise.

Technically speaking, Monaghan is not part of the list identified under what I referred to as the HIQA Ennis-Mallow recommendations. That is not to say that it is not a small hospital or that we will not seek to develop services there appropriately in the context of the small hospitals framework, but I------